Execution Log – 06/04/12-06/10/12: 06/06,Akwal,OH

NOTE: Bobby Hines was scheduled for execution next week by the government of the state of Texas, but prosecutors requested that the death warrant be withdrawn because they have not yet received results of new DNA testing.

This log includes information on one execution scheduled for next week, 06/04/12-06/10/12. Here are copies of the e-mails I sent to people in states with scheduled executions asking them to intervene. Please e-mail, phone or fax appeals of your own. You are welcome to cut & paste.

I ask you, Governor Kasich, to stop your state’s execution of Abdul Akwal. Mr. Akwal is scheduled to be poisoned by the government of Ohio next Wednesday, 06/06/12, for the 1992 murders of his estranged wife, Latife, and brother in law, Mahmoud, during a bitter religious and custody battle.

Mr. Awkal has been subjected to extraordinary pressures all his life, including the first nine years spent in the middle of the Lebanese civil war. Several medical practitioners, including those representing the state of Ohio, have diagnosed him schizoaffective. His life-long psychiatric case file includes post-traumatic stress disorder and hallucinations. He has repeatedly been found mentally incompetent to be executed by one court, only to have the judgment reversed in another. David Singleton, Mr. Akwal’s lawyer and the executive director of the Ohio Justice & Policy Center, says “Mr. Awkal is very seriously mentally ill and does not understand why he is being executed.” The United States Supreme Court long ago declared execution of the mentally ill a violation of the Constitution’s bar against cruel and unusual punishment. Governor Kasich, for humanitarian and legal reasons, Ohio may not execute Abdul Akwal. It is left to you to cancel this impending miscarriage of justice!

Former Attorney General of the United States Janet Reno, as well as myriads of scholars, can find no evidence that the death penalty deters capital crimes. In fact, the warden of the famous Sing Sing prison believes that the death penalty exacerbates the violence in his facility by setting an example of cold-blooded killing. Recent studies show that the largest increase in capital crimes is in the state of Texas, the state which executes the most people. As for vengeance, that is the Lord’s, not the government’s.

Please, Governor Kasich, stop this killing of Abdul Akwal. If this execution goes forward, look around this country for the black armbands worn, and the church bells tolled, in protest of this injustice.